


i can't leave him

by sasha_b



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-25
Updated: 2011-06-25
Packaged: 2017-10-20 17:12:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/215110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasha_b/pseuds/sasha_b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The plane ride back from Russia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i can't leave him

The plane ride back to the states is long. The CIA folk – idiots, Erik is now more than convinced – are closeted behind closed doors, Moira having left to see what the arguing and shouting was about. He could not care less; he cares about the girl he got Charles to read, and what she revealed about Shaw’s plan.

He leans back in an opulent seat, knees drawn to his chest, leather jacket and hat thrown to the ground next to him. His shoes sit on top of them; the covers on the bulky windows that line the (once military, now converted, he thinks) plane thrown up so he can see outside, the stars lighting the clear sky.

They are so high; Erik doesn’t worry about the mechanics of planes, but he does worry about the fools flying this one. Charles sits across from him, his fingers steepled together, his forehead creased in a nasty frown, his lids closed on his blue, blue eyes. Every so often Erik can see Charles shake his head slightly; once he catches the other man muttering to himself. He wonders then just how much time Charles spends wrapped in his own head, and wonders how the other man is as sane and as smart as he seems to be.

Erik is thankful again for his goals and his _I will find Shaw_ , for he knows he would have gone mad long ago were his gift the same as Charles’.

 _Erik_ echoes in his mind, a sharp stab of pain accompanying it. He jerks his head to the left and reaches out a hand, touching Charles on the shoulder. The other man’s eyes are still squinched closed, hair drooping into his face, his cardigan half buttoned, the flask of whisky he’d held in his hand sloshing as the other man –

Erik drops out of his seat onto one knee and uses his power to catch the thing without a thought; most items on this plane are plastic, but he knows –having shared it with Charles earlier – that the flask is from Charles’ home. He levers it to a safe place and lets his hand drop to his side. Rubbing fingers over his face, he feels the stubble and the dryness of his eyes and _Erik_ bounces through his skull like a paperweight slammed into the bone.

“Charles,” he says, knee-walking over to the other man’s chair; he lays his fingers – learning to destroy (to manipulate, Charles would say) with a mere thought with Charles’ help, something he has denied needing up until even now – on Charles’ hands that are clutching at his head and gently pries them away. The stars wink almost reflexively outside in the sky, and Erik has the impression they are hurtling through nothing, to get to nothing.

“Open your eyes,” he says, and moaning, Charles does so. His eyes are bloodshot and Erik doesn’t think he’s seen him this – he can’t form a sentence for how to describe it. His right hand rises and he locks the door that leads to the compartment they’re in with a jerk of fingers from where he kneels – opulent, huge, ridiculous – and touches Charles jawline briefly. A strange smile crosses his face; Charles is stubbled too; definitely not the other man’s style. The smile wilts at the sound that comes out of Charles’ mouth, though.

“I can’t shut it off,” Charles murmurs; that voice that’s usually so clear _even at night, his thoughts and words fill Erik’s brain from several rooms away_ and calm is wavering and unsure. “We have so much more to worry about than we thought, Erik.” He touches his temple with his left hand (the two fingers trembling) but Erik snatches them away from the other man’s head by the metal on Charles’ watch, Charles’ hand slapping onto his thigh with the force of the power used. “No,” he commands. “You have to let it go.”

Charles looks at him, eyes widening, breath catching – he laughs, broken and bitter and long. He clasps his hands in his lap and will not look away from Erik’s dark (sometimes dark, sometimes so blindingly bright) eyes. “Are you mocking me, my friend?”

Erik’s impassive face shuts down; the sheer narrowness of his features is terrifying in its sharpness. “I am trying to help you, as you so often point out that we all need. I can leave, if you’d like.” He stands, but Charles grasps the sleeve of his Henley before Erik can move back to his seat. The lights flash by on the outside, again giving the impression they’re tunneling through _empty._

“Erik, I’m sorry. Please, forgive me?” Charles asks, voice once again sure and calm. Erik hesitates, but kneels back down next to the other man. “This is so much worse, so much. I don’t have a clue how to proceed.” Charles spits the words out as though he’s afraid if they stay inside they’ll eat away at him – Erik knows how that feels. Only too well. _Showing weakness is the worst of any sin, and he will not do it again. He will move the coin and he will crush the fence and he will escape and kill Shaw and every person that’s wronged him in this life._

But what will he do with the one who’s been anything but that?

“Right now we fly, we get back home and we go from there.” Erik takes Charles’ face between his calloused hands, not realizing it, not feeling what he’s doing. There is only one person that’s spoken the truth to him in all this time, and only that one person deserves to be trusted. He’s not alone. Charles won’t have to go through this alone, no matter the consequences. But which person is the truth coming from? Erik blinks, unsure, hating it.

He cocks his head as he watches Charles, tracks the movement of the other man’s eyes. _We get back home, and I use the information we just got from the diamond girl to finish what I started eighteen years ago. No matter the consequences._

 _No matter how much you are right, Charles._ Surety of one thing, at least.

Erik can handle anything alone, has tried to handle it alone, but in this, in this one thing – now, he can’t. Now, he needs Charles Xavier and he’s never needed _anyone_ in his whole life. And he’s not sure if that need is coming from the knowledge that he’s not the only freak in the world, or the fact he’s connected with someone, something bigger than himself.

He smiles, and Charles smiles weakly back at him. _Nothing is bigger than the end to a mean._

He brushes his thumbs over Charles’ cheekbones, once, twice, a third time. There’s something there that’s forcing away his normal pattern of thought, of repetition, of safety. He licks his dry lips and drops his gaze downward, to Charles’ red mouth and the mobility of it has seized any free neurotransmitter in his brain and he shoots a sigh out of his nose and Charles’ smile is stronger –

He’d meant to distract, to set Charles’ mind on other things, to take away the pain he’s tired of seeing on the other man’s round, kind _how does he even know that?_ face.

Erik’s mouth touches Charles’ and Charles leans forward quickly, his hands gripping Erik’s where they rest on Charles’ face. Their teeth clack together – a completely unromantic sound, but Erik finds it … stimulating, a forcible power like that of their minds, together – and he keeps his hands where they are, the plane seat creaking as Charles moves to get closer to him.

It is chaste at first.

-

The window covers are still flung open, the stars still flashing by, the chill of outside shut away from them by the metal walls of something Erik could crush if he had half a mind to. If he had the serenity – or that place between, really – that Charles is convinced he can find. But now he’s more concerned with the dark of the cabin, the feel of warm, solid flesh beneath his own, and the sounds that are coming out of Charles Xavier’s red mouth _swollen and hot and wet_ and Erik runs his hands up the other man’s spread arms, the carpet under them rough and rubbing the skin off his thighs.

He buries his face in Charles’ sweaty neck, the longish hair tickling his cheek, sticking to his lips as he mouths the large artery there, even as Charles’ legs entangle with his own, twining, endless.

 _I don’t know how to do this._

“You don’t have to,” Charles murmurs to him, hands on his back, lips on Erik’s face, his eyelids, his nose, his chin. “We can learn it together.”

Erik’s never done anything together with anyone, save someone that wants things from him that he doesn’t want to give. He closes his eyes for a moment, the lashes sweeping over Charles’ _close_ skin.

He kisses Charles then, again, for what seems like the millionth time even though it’s only been such a short while _need it, need him._ He won’t admit to that, he can’t.

 _Don’t kid yourself. You needed my help last night._

He breaks away and looks down at Charles, flushed and shining in the light of the _blank_ outside the plane’s walls. Disarrayed and scattered and like nothing Erik’s ever seen in his ordered, perfectly scheduled life. What’s it like to throw things to the wind and follow your heart?

Fear freezes him and squeezes his heart as the all familiar rage works its way inside, even as Charles’ arms pull him close, tighter, boxing him in. He breathes heavily, panting, sweat slick hands scrabbling for purchase on the floor –

But then Charles catches his fingers, and brings them back to his waist (a bit soft, but lean and hard where Erik doesn’t expect it) and he thinks of one thing and slows his breathing. He thinks of two things, and it slows even more, his heart dragging into a rhythm that matches the man’s under him.

 _You’re not alone. Erik, you’re not alone._

 _What do you know about me?_

 _Everything._

“Everything?” he whispers onto Charles’ lips, and can feel the smile that blooms underneath the word. His hands wander to thread in Charles’ hair, even as the worry takes possession of his stomach and mind _don’t forget the goal_.

“Everything, my friend,” Charles whispers back. He winces once; a reflex, hand sliding upward for his temple, but Erik stops it and winds it with his own.

They stutter together and start and stop and argue and run and laugh and smile (images flying faster and faster through his brain) and Erik pushes gently, tremulously at this thing he’s found that is the scariest thing in the world. Scarier than what will happen when he actually finds Shaw and does what he’s meant to do. Scarier than living a life alone and with a singular focus. Scarier than –

“…than finding out someone can know you besides just you?”

Erik doesn’t answer, save to kiss Charles again, the plane hurtling through empty that doesn’t seem quite so black.


End file.
